South Carolina executed its first 13-year-old inmate, fatally injecting Freddie Owens.
Owens, 46, was convicted of killing store clerk Irene Graves during an armed robbery in Greenville in 1997.
He was killed even though the suspect he was arrested with signed a sworn statement this week saying that Owens was not present at the time of the robbery and murder.
The South Carolina Supreme Court refused to stay Owens’ execution, saying the claims were inconsistent with the evidence presented at his trial.
Owens was executed at the Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia, South Carolina, on Friday evening.
He was pronounced dead at 18:55 local time (22:55 GMT) after being injected with a drug called pentobarbital. He did not make a final statement.
His death follows a government moratorium on executions because prison officials were unable to obtain the drug needed for lethal injections.
Owens was sentenced to death in 1999, two years after killing Graves, after being convicted of murder, armed robbery and conspiracy.
The day after he was found guilty, he killed his cellmate in prison, reports CNN affiliate WHNS.
According to South Carolina newspaper The State, Owens was 19 years old when he and Steve Golden, then 18 years old, held Graves at gunpoint while trying to rob a store where he worked.
Owens shot and killed Graves after he failed to open the safe under the counter, according to testimony provided by Golden at Owens’ trial.
At the time of her death, Graves was a 41-year-old single mother of three.
Owens’ attorneys have tried to stay his execution several times, including twice in September. But the court rejected each request.
In the latest move, attorneys pointed to an affidavit signed by Golden on Wednesday, which claims Owens is innocent.
The court rejected the request for a stay of execution saying the new affidavit was “inconsistent with Golden’s testimony in the Owens case in 1999” and the statement he gave to police shortly after his arrest.
Other witnesses testified that Owens told them he shot Graves, prosecutors said.
Advocates against the death penalty and Owens’ mother also appealed to the state for leniency, which Governor Henry McMaster refused.
Hours before he was killed, Owens’ mother said in a statement that it was “a terrible injustice to my son”.
“Freddie has maintained his innocence from day one,” said his mother, Dora Mason, according to local media outlet Greenville News.
Prisoners in South Carolina are allowed to choose whether they want to die by lethal injection, the electric chair or the firing squad.
Owens deferred the decision to his attorney, who opted for lethal injection, according to the Greenville News.
Reporters who witnessed the incident said that members of the Graves family were also present.
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